The 1990's decade has been marked by a societal technological revolution driven by the convergence of the data processing industry with the consumer electronics industry. This advance has been even further accelerated by the extensive consumer and business involvement in the Internet over the past two years. As a result of these changes, it seems as if virtually all aspects of human endeavor in the industrialized world requires human-computer interfaces. As a result of these profound changes, there is a need to make computer directed activities accessible to a substantial portion of the world's population which, up to a year or two ago, was computer-illiterate, or at best computer indifferent. In order for the vast computer supported market places to continue and be commercially productive, it will be necessary for a large segment of computer indifferent consumers to be involved in computer interfaces.
Despite all of the great changes which have been made in the computer industry, the screen cursor controlled manually by the user still remains the primary human-computer interface. The user still commands the computer primarily through manual pointing devices such as mice, joysticks and trackballs which control the on screen cursor movements. It must be noted that the principles involved in such pointing devices developed a generation ago when most of the people involved in interfaces to computer were computer professionals who were willing to invest great amounts of time in developing computer skills. It is very possible that had computers originally been the mass consumer, business and industry implements which they are today, user interfaces which were much easier and required less skill to use would have been originally sought and developed. Nonetheless, the manually controlled cursor movement devices are our primary access for cursor control. The present invention is directed to making mouse, trackball and the like cursor control devices more user friendly and effective.
Since cursor control devices such as the mouse translate orthogonal manual movements into cursor movements on the display screen, the user in cramped facilities such as an airplane seat or a lecture hall may find lateral movements difficult. People with limited manual dexterity due to illness may find movement in certain orthogonal directions more difficult than in other directions. In addition, the computer has been found to be most effective as a work saving device in situations requiring a user to interface with the display for a limited number of repetitive functions. In the workplace, these repetitive functions may be performed by people of very limited computer interface skills. Since such users or operators would have limited mouse skills, it would be advantageous to have the ability to program the cursor control system to optimize the effectiveness of user manual orthogonal movements in performing the repetitive functions.